Moving To A New Host

I'm slowly transitioning everything from here to a new host. All the bike stuff, art and graphic design, music... From now on it's all going to be found at nshanemartin.com

Today's Trail Musings

I swapped out my Egg Beaters for platforms as a way to change things up. Bad move. Floppy shoes and no foot retention have made for a very long, rough seven miles. Egg Beaters are getting swapped back post haste.

In an effort to save some tread on my cx tires I replaced them with Schwalbe Marathons. The weight and size increase made things worse. I'll be swapping those back after supper.

Mmm, food.

Had a weird conversation with a homeless guy. Wasn't weird because he was homeless but because it was on the subject of the prehistory of the GT triple triangle.

He knew things about GT I did not know. Frantic Googling began as he left to return to the shelter and before I forgot the things he said. It all checked out.

Year End Top 20 List

Time to make my year end lists like a good lil’ Capricorn. This years lists are brought to you by Last.fm charts and a good deal of Spotify listening. They’re not exactly what I expected but the lists got skewed a good deal by a certain playlist that got heavy rotation.

My average listening was the poppy-er rock and punk but I really started delving into the hardcore, doom and “stoner” rock genres more so this year. This is mostly because of my search for my long lost bass tone. Trap Them’s “Day Thirteen: The Protest Hour” is a good example.

Anyway, on with the goods.

TRACKS

1. Alkaline Trio – Clavicle
2. Midtown – Your Love
3. Alkaline Trio – Do You Wanna Know
4. Hey Mercedes – Haven’t Been This Happy
5. New Found Glory – The Promise
6. MXPX – Move To Bremerton
7. Weezer – (If You’re Wondering…) I Want You To
8. Nada Surf – Enjoy The Silence
9. Guided By Voices – Hold On Hope
10. Braid – Always Something There To Remind Me
11. Black Tusk – This Time Is Divine
12. Metallica – For Whom The Bell Tolls
13. Weekend Nachos – Hometown Hero
14. Car Bomb – The Sentinel
15. Narrows – Chambered
16. Burnt By The Sun – There Will Be Blood
17. Lift To Experience
18. The Paper Chase – We Know Where You Sleep
19. Goatsnake – Knucklebuster
20. Trap Them – Day 13: The Protest Hour

ALBUMS

1. Descendents – Everything Sucks
2. Descendents – Two Things At Once
3. The Joy Formidable – The Big Roar
4. Silversun Pickups – Carnavas
5. Red Fang – Murder The Mountains
6. Silversun Pickups – Swoon
7. Alkaline Trio – Alkaline Trio
8. NOFX – Punk In Drublic
9. Braid – Movie Music Vol. 2
10. Fucked Up – David Comes To Life
11. Hey Mercedes – Loses Control
12. The Promise Ring – Wood Water
13. The Get Up Kids – Eudora
14. Alkaline Trio – Remains
15. Alkaline Trio – Agony & Irony
16. Girl Talk – Night Ripper
17. Alkaline Trio – Goddammit
18. Alkaline Trio – Maybe I’ll Catch Fire
19. Braid – Lucky To Be Alive
20. Doomriders – Darkness Comes Alive

ARTISTS

1. Alkaline Trio
2. Braid
3. The Promise Ring
4. Descendents
5. Silversun Pickups
6. The Joy Formidable
7. Hey Mercedes
8. Primus
9. The Get Up Kids
10. Coheed and Cambria
11. Red Fang
12. NOFX
13. Sunny Day Real Estate
14. Weezer
15. Girl Talk
16. Nerf Herder
17. Big Kids
18. Trap Them
19. Fucked Up
20. The Melvins

From looking at this years list and those of years past I make this deduction: I really listen to a lot of the same music over and over and over.

My New Year’s Resolution: I will listen to a wider variety of music.

Follow me on Twitter @nshanemartin for bike talk, bitching about music and design and screen print junk.

Music Monday

Top Ten Artists

1. Truckfighters
2. Fucked Up
3. Sunny Day Real Estate
4. Primus
5. Braid
6. Alkaline Trio
7. Coheed and Cambria
8. Kool Moe Dee
9. Smashing Pumpkins
10. Hey Mercedes

Top Ten Albums

1. Fucked Up – David Comes To Life
2. Truckfighters – Gravity X
3. Truckfighters – Phi
4. Truckfighters – Hidden Treasures Of Fuzz
5. Kool Moe Dee – Knowledge Is King
6. Urban Dance Squad – Mental Floss For The Globe
7. Thursday – Full Collapse
8. Sunny Day Real Estate – Live
9. Prong – Prove You Wrong
10. Fugazi – Red Medicine

Top Ten Tracks

1. Third Eye Blind – Graduate
2. Sunny Day Real Estate – J’nuh
3. Truckfighters – Desert Cruiser
4. Death Cab For Cutie – I Will Follow You Into The Dark
5. Fucked Up – Queen Of Hearts
6. Herbie Hancock – Rockit
7. Pantera – Good Friends and a Bottle of Pills
8. Pantera – Strength Beyond Strength
9. Alkaline Trio – Bleeder
10. INXS – Need You Tonight

Weird Bike Wednesday

Racing Tricycles? What the hell.

Well I’ll be damned, apparently it is a thing. A thing that dates back to the 1920’s according to http://www.tricycleassociation.org.uk/ and still happens today. It’s even kept up with the technology.

I’ve never been on one of these sweet rides but I imagine I’ll try to track down an even when I make a trip to Wales. In the meantime here’s some links to conversion kits and a few pictures of the best/worst of the best/worst.

http://www.trykit.com/

http://www.bikecare.co.uk/tribike.html

http://www.trikezilla.com/

 

Example of it being a thing.

 

Fixed gear, track trike?

So gross. So very, very gross.

 

You know what? Some where, there’s a girl that will ride this with me. She’s probably off somewhere yelling “ON YOUR LEFT!!1”

 

Reverse trike mixte with disc brakes.

I guess when I get old and can’t balance a bike this will be my preferred ride. Maybe not in the lavender though.

 

Weird Bike Wednesday

Time for more weird bikes, trawled from the depths of the interwebs.

It’s so very close but still so far to go. I love these Peugeot frames. I like the idea of the deep v’s but green? I’m going with green on my Peugeot but the frame is a collection of fall colors and the green will actually be complementary. Bullhorns at an awkward angle? Yellow chain? I’m ok with the yellow tires because I’m running yellow tires. It works with the Peugeot stripe color scheme. Kudos on two brakes!


This bike made it to a bike show display with that stem setup? Trim it. What is going on with those wheels? I’m sure there is some aero theory to them but they are just fugly. My research (Google > Passoni bike > Wheels, extensive research) tells me that there are only TEN sets of these wheels made. Thank god.


What. The. Hell. I’m guessing an internal geared hub in the back, but why the pie plate/dork disc? Seat tube all the way out. Stem way up. Handlebars at a goofy angle. No bar plugs? Don’t wreck or risk taking a plug out of you. Looks like a nice set of polished fenders. Someone was proud enough of this to pose it on top of a table to take a picture of it…or we’re they trolling? I can almost see this as a good city beater with some minor adjustments for the right sized person.

Weird Bike Wednesday

Every week I trawl the internet hoping to catch a few fine specimens of the “weird bike.” Every week I find the weirdest shit and distill it down and present it you. I”ll shut up now and get to the pics.

We got some kind of badass here. Wheel/tire/brake combo off a sport bike. Seriously, have fun losing races to slugs.

Someone please find photo or video evidence of this “bike” being ridden. They took the time to weld it up so there had to be some sort of proof that it can be used.

Kent Thruster/McFixie: Second Look

Alrighty folks, it’s time to take a look back on the Kent Thruster I reviewed earlier. I’m still calling it the McFixie because it looks like something Ronald McDonald would ride. It’s actually gotten worse/better in its recent incarnation I discovered on a trip to Wally World to pick up a spare inner tube.

The new Thruster is a white frame with pink and blue plaid graphics, black rims and pink tires. Aside from the pink tires, I prefer it to the Classic McD’s look. Make the suggested modifications and somewhere a girl with have her very own My Little Fixie.

But back to the point. I now have about 200 miles on the bike and feel I can give it a little more insight into the workings of this bike. Bear in mind this bike is too small for me and generally do not ride big box store bicycle shaped objects.

Firstly, it’s too small for me. I’m 6’1” and right at 200 pounds. It supports me on my rides but it is not a comfortable ride. Think adult in a child’s car seat levels of uncomfortable. Now, if you are in the 5’3” to 5’7” range this will probably be an appropriate bike for you…assuming you don’t mind riding the bicycle equivalent of a jack hammer.

Secondly, the Thruster is an extremely rigid bike. I’m not sure how they did it, but they did. I normally ride steel frame bikes and have never had one ride this stiff. Steel is generally a smoother ride than this. I’d expect this ride quality from aluminum or stone. But this is a blessing and a curse. A stiff bike is responsive, goes where you tell it as soon as you tell it so. A stiff bike will also rattle the teeth right out of your head. You might be able to counteract some of the bone jarring with slightly more voluminous tires. Might. A different saddle is a must. I recently used an Origin8 Classic Lite on a restoration and was impressed with its comfort/price ratio. A little hint: shopping.google.com is a bargain hunters best friend. I found one, shipped, for under $20.

 

Thirdly, the brakes are still shite. The brake pads are the first, weakest link. Almost anything would be an improvement, even the $1/ea generic shoes from your local bike shop. The second weakest link in the braking system is the painted rim. Ride enough and the paint will wear off and the brake stopping power will increase. Don’t just take some sandpaper to the rims hoping for an improvement. This will just ruin your wheelset. Let the paint wear off. A few rides in the rain will speed the process along nicely.

Lastly, the drive train can be improved very quickly with two things: new pedals and a slightly larger track cog. The stock pedals are plastic and I can feel them creaking and flexing underfoot with each turn of the cranks. I’m going to pimp another Origin8 product, the ProTrack Light pedals. They are a good pedal for the price.

For a new fixed gear cog I’d suggest something in a 20tooth size. It should be under $20 and can be picked up online or from your local bike shop. It will limit your top speed but will make your acceleration quicker and climbing hills, and using your legs to stop, much easier. The stock setup is not a bad gear ratio for freewheel riding, assuming you only ride on the flattest of roads. I’d suggest a one or two tooth increase on the freewheel as well (~$20 + labor) to make acceleration and hill climbing easier.

But at this point you have spent an additional $75-$100 in parts to make a $100 bike more comfortable to ride. For not much more you could visit bikesdirect.com and look at their fixed gear track bikes and get one in a size that actually fits you and will ride much better.

Or, just get the Thruster in original flavor Mickie D’s or the new pink/blue plaid and thrash it for the lulz.

Weird Bike Wednesday

In this Weird Bike Wednesday, it’s only the best of the best in the Time Trial Commuter category. Somewhere, someone was late to work because they didn’t have a set of carbon wheels, or TT bars. Maybe their areo tuck wasn’t tucked enough? What the need is a TT Commuter. Racks, Zipps, lights, aero cross section everything!

I am a firm believer in the “do what you can, with what you have, where you are” motto but damn. The disc wheel, dynamo, shoulder carry bag, clip ons on flat bars, fender. So dreamy!

Fixed gear, step through frame and time trial bars. Let’s make babies!

I wanted to think this was a piss take but the fenders fit close and the brakes are correctly placed. “Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday. Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam... “

I see where I think this one was going but it came up short. I can only guess it was a Paris-Roubaix wannabe. The RockShox P-R is the giveaway, but the mismatched wheels and rack ruin it. TTCommuter.

Coors Light and a Pomeranian in the rack on the flat bars. Spinergy.

Winrar!

Music Monday

My schedule is so screwy I’m changing Top 10 Tuesday to Music Monday. Eff it, eff it right in the a. So here it is.

Top 10 Artists

1. Future of the Left
2. Red Fang
3. Primus
4. The Promise Ring
5. Fucked Up
6. Alkaline Trio
7. Hey Mercedes
8. The Get Up Kids
9. Girl Talk
10. Big Kids

Top 10 Albums

1. Future of the Left – The Plot Against Common Sense
2. Future of the Left – Travels With Myself and Another
3. Red Fang – Murder The Mountains
4. Fucked Up – David Comes To Life
5. Red Fang – Red Fang
6. Future of the Left – Polymers Are Forever
7. Hey Mercedes – Loses Control
8. The Get Up Kids – Eudora
9. Girl Talk – Night Ripper
10. Big Kids – Phone Home

Top 10 Tracks

1. Red Fang – Prehistoric Dog
2. Red Fang – Wires
3. Red Fang – Hank Is Dead
4. Dire Straits – Romeo And Juliet (What happened here?)
5. Future of the Left – Anchor
6. Foo Fighters – February Stars
7. Refused – New Noise
8. Incubus – Vitamin
9. Alkaline Trio – Goodbye Forever
10. Filter – Welcome To The Fold

Sometimes an oddity will creep in, such as Romeo and Juliet.

As usual, most tracks scrobbled to Last.fm from Spotify. Others through Winamp for Windows or Android mobile.

State Of The Commute Address

It’s hot.

Well, it was hot for about two weeks. Then the day before it cooled off I decided to meet a friend for a shopping extravaganza. On the way there, my rear end felt a little swishy, squishy, bouncy. Quick look down showed me a nearly flat tire. Get to destination and look it over and decide I’ll pop across the street afterwards and give it a fill up.

When I came out after shopping it was absolutely flat. Rim on the ground. In all of my bags, trunk bag, panniers, seat bag, and back pack I didn’t have a single patch or tube. An hour later my pick up arrived to take me and the bike home.

Upon arrival I discovered a wayward spoke. After closer inspection I discovered a second broken spoke directly across the hub. This makes approximately 20 spokes I’ve broken in the last two and a half years. Either I’m too fat for 32 spoke rims or the roads are just that bad around here. The GT is getting a 48 spoke single speed rear, just as soon as I find a decent 26” rim. The Peugeot is getting heavier gauge spokes and some kind of deep-V rim for a little added strength. Weight is really of no concern.

Moral of the story: I’ll be carrying an extra spoke or two and where the hell is my patch kit? Guess I’ll be picking up one next time I’m by the LBS. Also, backup water bottles and a spare shirt are a must when the temperature goes above 90 degrees.

The motorists have been fairly well adjusted lately, only yelling the standards: “ride on the sidewalk, that’s where bikes belong” and “fuck off dirty hippy.”

1983 Raleigh Olympian Restoration

A new project has come through my door. It’s been many months coming but with the assistance of our local ride crew I found a bike for my friend. As of now it just looks like an old road bike. The plans are to make it look like an old road bike, but clean. Aside from that it might get a fresh set of decals and some contrast paint on the lugs.

[Here it is in all of its glory]

To do list:

1. Clean All The Parts!!!1
2. New tires/tubes/rim strips
3. Fresh bar tape
4. New (old stock) brake levers
5. Paint lug edges (maybe)
6. Fresh decals (maybe)
7. New chain
8. New saddle
9. Handlebar bag

Top 10 Thursday

Moving the top 10 list to Thursday this week. Go a little sidetracked with bicycle related activities and just plain forgot to do it. So here it is, better late than never.

Top 10 Artists

1. Braid
2. Pantera
3. Lightning Bolt
4. Descendents
5. Primus
6. The Promise Ring
7. Silversun Pickups
8. The Get Up Kids
9. Smashing Pumpkins
10. Prong

Top 10 Albums

1. Pantera – Far Beyond Driven
2. Descendents – Everything Sucks
3. Prong – Prove You Wrong
4. Lightning Bolt- Hypermagic Mountain
5. Silversun Pickups – Carnavas
6. Braid – Movie Music vol. 2
7. Descendents – Two Things At Once
8. Meat Puppets – Too High To Die
9. Adventures of Jet – Muscle
10. Rites of Spring – S/T

Top 10 Tracks

1. Don Henley – The Boys of Summer
2. Pantera – 5 Minutes Alone
3. Smashing Pumpkins – Ava Adore
4. Morphine – Dawna
5. Braid – A Dozen Roses
6. Braid – You’re Lucky To Be Alive
7. Coyote Shivers – Sugar High
8. Paul Westerberg – Dyslexic Heart
9. Primus – Puddin’ Taine
10. Prong - Irrelevant Thoughts

Reference: Nearly all of my playcounts come from Spotify. The remainder come from the small amount of music that I keep on my phone. All playcounts are tracked by last.fm. These are not opinion based top 10 lists, they are straight by the numbers. Often times my favorite tracks of the week don’t make the list.

Weird Bike Wednesday

Bringing you the weird, the wtf and the “well, huh…”

“What I think I’ll do is start a fire in front of my bike. Should make it look more extreme.

I’ve complained about the saddle on my McFixie an awful lot lately but this bike absolutely wins the worst saddle category. And that lightweight, recyclable top tube. But what happened to the handlebars?

If you’re going to flip the bars that far just go ahead and make them full on felon bars. This bike has to be too large for it’s owner for the seat to be down that far.

A Nimbus 2000 it is not, but that steering mechanism looks like it just might work.

Back in the late 80’s some bike riders got the idea to recreate Formula One racing, on two wheels. Somewhat flat track, left and right turns. Here’s one example of the bikes that came out of that time:

I had an opportunity to ride one of these in my youth. Basically it was a 20” bmx bike, wheel covers, drop stem with flat bars, a huge chain ring and a wide range cassette thrown in for good measure. Oh yeah, and a body kit the likes of which wouldn’t be seen again until The Fast and The Furious. The bikes were fast but super awkward to ride. The racing was done in such tight quarters that the wrecks were more fantastic than the motorsport equivalent.

Which brings us to these nostalgia monsters:

This one obviously has aspirations of becoming a Cat6 Formula One Commuter racer…somewhere very dark.

It’s just bad. I heard it was solid bondo and added nearly 60 pounds to the already heavy BSO. Any aero qualities were negated by the serious obesity of this piece. But it gets better. Look closely at the hubs, they’re green. The pedals? Also green. Cranks too! Someone took the time to attempt to color match this. OVERKILL!!!

I’m going to quit bitching about other peoples bikes and go spend some time with mine. If you got one, ride one.

Weird Bike Wednesday

Another Weird Bike Wednesday coming your way. I mean, look at these shits! Two-wheeled trainwrecks, the lot. Also, it’s Saturday and I’m off schedule. I’ll be bringing you more in just a few days.

Geared, track bike, fenders, flat bars, 650/700 funnybike.

Full suspension mountain bike frame, disc/road wheels, suspension seat post. Wat?

Lured me in with nice welds, bare steel, foot retention, overall sedate look. Then, put on what amounts to no handle bars. I mean, tightest of gaps.

Another full suspension WTF’er. This time with megaspoke low rider bike wheels. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

I just threw up in my own eyes.

For when you absolutely have to Zipp down to the corner store as fast as possible.

Top 10 Tuesday

Getting back into doing this blog thing with a fresh Top 10 Tuesday. This is a top 10 list of everything I listen to while at work, at home, riding the bike, etc and so forth. I don’t listen to the radio and I don’t even know why you would listen to me, but years of working in a record store tells me that people want more from music. Here’s your “more.” Now, on with the list!

Artists

1. Alkaline Trio
2. The Descendents
3. Girl Talk
4. Silversun Pickups
5. NOFX
6. Saves The Day
7. Fucked Up
8. Damien Jurado
9. Pixies
10. Manic Street Preachers

Albums

1. The Descendents – Everything Sucks
2. Alkaline Trio – Goddamnit
3. Silversun Pickups – Swoon
4. Girl Talk – All Day
5. NOFX – Punk In Drublic
6. Alkaline Trio – Good Mourning
7. Saves The Day – Through Being Cool
8. Fucked Up – David Comes To Life
9. Sunny Day Real Estate – Diary
10. Coheed and Cambria – Second Stage Turbine Blade

Tracks

1. Saves The Day – Through Being Cool
2. Silversun Pickups – The Royal We
3. Alkaline Trio – Cringe
4. JJ72 – Undercover Angel
5. Alkaline Trio – Crawl
6. Alkaline Trio – Clavicle
7. Alkaline Trio – Nose Over Tail
8. Smashing Pumpkins
9. The Get Up Kids – Don’t Hate Me
10. Pixies – U-Mass

You should be able to find all of the above on your favorite online music service. I like Spotify. I tend to lean heavily on the late 90’s and early 2000’s indie and emo so I’m open to suggestions.

The McFixie: Or, the Kent Thruster Review

About 8 weeks ago I broke down and bought the bike I said I would never buy. I wanted it. It was interesting. It is fugly and overall NOT a crap bike.

“Why did you buy this?”

It was on sale. I fell for it.

After half an hour of talking to the “Toy Manager” she called in the assistant store manager who could not understand why I wanted to take the wheels off to transport it home.

“Because it won’t fit in the trunk of the car, that’s why. What does it matter?”

He then had to call the store manager, at home, to find out if it was OK for me to disassemble the bike in the store for easier transport. Cluster-F city. It took an hour from entry to the store to me going through self check-out with my bike and two ponies.

[Enough about Wal-Mart antics and My Little Pony.]

I brought the bike home and immediately set it up as a fixed gear. A few laps around the driveway and I discovered the brakes rub. Primarily the rear brakes. The handlebars were rotated 180 degrees from where they should be. A lot more of the parts are plastic than the photo on the Wal-Mart website led me to believe. I brought the bike in my shop to give it a quick once over. Eight hours later I felt somewhat comfortable riding it.

The following item is not recommended or even considered safe, it was just for my own amusement.

I removed all safety features: reflectors, chain guard, bash ring. They were all plastic and going to eventually break. (Side note: I don’t ride this bike after dark and if I plan to, I have a full set of lights for it). Don’t try this at home unless you fully understand what the hell you are doing.

The rear brake was bent causing it to drag. It was bent bad enough that I didn’t even consider trying to bend it back. I took it off and threw it in the scrap parts pile.

The wheels shown on the Wal-Mart website have machined braking surfaces. Mine are painted and severely limit the braking efforts. Either way, the red&yellow/yellow&red combo got swapped around and is now yellow on yellow and red on red. Much more pleasing.

[Ignore the water hose. I didn’t feel like moving it and it kind of matches the photo.]

Staying with the wheels I’ll mention this: my rear wheel is slightly out of round. Not enough to notice while riding but if you give it a spin on the stand it develops a nice hop. I’ll bring my mechanic a sixer of something beer-like and we’ll fix this problem.

The drivetrain is squiffy at best, but for all practical purposes as a “my first fixie” it’s not that bad. The pedals are plastic yet shown as metal on the Wal-Mart website. Standard sized bottom bracket with what feels like the shortest cranks they felt like including. Chain ring is a non standard type and cannot be changed. The flip-flop hub included both a fixed cog with lock ring and a freewheel of the same tooth count. No chain tugs makes getting the chain tension difficult.

The frame feels like it could be cast iron but we’ll just say steel. It’s freaking heavy for no bigger than it is. No bottle cage bosses even though they are shown on the website. Only available in one size, feels like a 52cm. Old school 1” threaded headset instead of 1 1/8” like the current standard. The seat is meh at best and the grips are hellish.

The Kent Thruster “fixie” normally sells for $99.99 but due to some scrapes and scratches mine was discounted to $69.99. Honestly it is NOT as bad as I make it out to be. Don’t expect to get what’s pictured on the website. Do expect their “free assembly” to be bad and to require a few hours of slowly going over for mistakes. For a big-box-store brand bicycle shaped object, I would rather have this bike than one of the many 26” full suspension turds. Yes, it’s too small for me (I’m ~6’1” and 200lbs) but that does not make it any less fun to ride. Now that I have “My First Fixie” out of the way it’s time to start shopping for a more permanent addition to my bike stable.

[You can see the $30 discount scratch on the right side of the handlebars. ]

[Rode it to work, a grand five miles each way. It bordered on masochistic but has started to grow on me.]

[Occasionally I take a decent picture of myself. This is not one of them.]

Top 10 Tuesday

Time again for some top 10 lists. I’ve been working a lot further from home lately, about a 10 mile commute each way. Gets me an extra two hours a day on the bike. Now If I can get a 32 gig card for my phone to have all my favorite tracks in one place. Spotify has been keeping my ears happy and Last.fm keeping track of crunching the numbers. On to the list.

Top 10 Artists

1. The Joy Formidable
2. Joe Christmas
3. Kylesa
4. American Football
5. Girl Talk
6. Green Day
7. The Promise Ring
8. Primus
9. Incubus
10. Faith No More

Top 10 Tracks

1. The Joy Formidable – Cradle
2. The Joy Formidable – Austere
3. The Joy Formidable – The Greatest Light Is the Greatest Shade
4. The Joy Formidable – Whirring
5. The Joy Formidable – I Don't Want to See You Like This
6. The Joy Formidable – Buoy
7. The Joy Formidable – The Magnifying Glass
8. The Joy Formidable – A Heavy Abacus
9. The Joy Formidable – Llaw = Wall
10. American Football – Never Meant

Some might say that tracks list is a bit obsessive. Some have never listened to The Joy Formidable.

Weird Bike Monday

Screw it. I’m posting when ever. I can’t keep a schedule so here’s some poor misguided bikes.

Balls. What the hell happened here? It really looks like it wants to be a mountain bike when it grows up, or maybe a T-Rex. That short stem and radial laced 650 looks twitchy.

Another funny bike. I’m fairly sure I have not seen a bicycle drag race yet. That thing is the exact steering opposite of the one above it. It must steer like a slug.

I wouldn’t normally rag on a Little Lebowski Urban Achiever bike but 101 damnations son. You locked it up with a cable lock and left the U-lock hanging on the bars. Nice lockjob.

I seriously hope this was done just for the picture. This is troll food.

Hope you liked your retinas. Holy fuck, the went out of their way to do the pink/purple color matching on this one and then went out of their way to photograph it on a red background to maximize the color clash.

And on that note, I’m out.